I am a carpenter for a high school theater program.
I am designing a high school theater set with Sketchup. I have 5 archways and 2 windows, and I will be adding doorways to the set.

The back walls where the windows and arches are is very thin only about 4" thick.
I have tried for day to cut the openings out so the windows see right through, and so the arches see right through as well. I am having no luck.

Also, when I go to color in some sections, it will end up coloring in the entire stage, not just the little part I have selected.

What am I doing wrong? I am completely self taught off of youtube videos. Is it possible for someone to be so kind, and help me. I can send the Sketchup file for reference to help.

group your wall so that when you edit/color it that will be confined to that wall and will not affect rest of model.
It’s good practice to group everything. Maybe even make your arch wall a component then when you edit one it will change all of the others. If items are not grouped and there is connected geometry, a triple click will select everything connected making changing elements of size and color difficult.

Assuming you are using the push pull tool to try to cut openings for windows and arches - what result do you get - a 2D surface left at the end of the push-pull action? If so delete the 2D surface to complete the opening.

Coloring specific areas are best completed by first creating components which you want to be of one color (fastest for changing, editing colors).

If you have already made your walls with thickness and are not having luck with push pull, it may be that the front and back face are not “co-planar” so the tool will not work as expected. To save redrawing, i would just delete the back face of the wall and push/pull the shape in 4" - you can type that amount on your keyboard and it will appear in the VCB. then just delete the back face or your pulled shape. Unless you want to show the whole wall thickness, might be better to re-draw it. Remember to group it to avoid selecting all connected geometry later. or you could do what I show in this other gif…continue to push it through and then select everythin (in that group) and intersect the geometry then dele te what you dont need.

Here it is with openings cut.
The problem was a few things. You did have things grouped, but the be able to push/pull the outline has to be within the wall group, not two separate groups. So the arch lines had to be in/on the wall into which they were to be cut.
The other issue was that those arch profiles were not on the surface of the wall.

Same with the windows (which were also upside down) should have been imported (if you got them from the wharehouse) inside the wall group.

I also think you were modeling onto a wall with some thickness and it may be better, particularly with scenery, to keep it simple and just have that be a face without thickness. You could pull out the thickness after if needed?

With the arches cut through that wall looks like it needs to come onto the riser a bit, or the riser extended back?

I think that your coloring issue maybe that because a lot of geometry (like the stage for example) is in a group, when you add color with the paint bucket to what you might think is the stage surface, it is actually coloring the whole group. To just color the stage floor, double click it to open the group and then apply color to an individual surface.

Thank you so much!! That is perfect! I have a few questions if you wouldn’t mind. If I understand correctly, the arches cannot be there own separate group? They have to be in the same group as the wall?

You mention that the arches and windows were not on the surface of the walls. Is there a way to ensure that they can be drawn on the wall, for future reference?

And I thought I imported the windows properly from the warehouse, but how do I import the windows inside the wall group?

I’m still trying to learn and wrap my head around the software.
But thank you again for all the help.
-Nick

the arches cannot be there own separate group? They have to be in the same group as the wall?

To pushpull them through the wall, yes, all has to be in the same context (i.e. model, group, or component). There are various ways to get the equivalent of the arch into the wall’s context, so that you can pushpull it. For example [copy arch+open wall group+paste in place] or [open wall group and intersect faces with model] though the latter may generate intersections with things you didn’t intend.

thespica93:

Is there a way to ensure that they can be drawn on the wall, for future reference?

Have the wall context open for edit when you draw them, and pay close attention to inference tooltips to make sure you are drawing on the appropriate surface.

thespica93:

And I thought I imported the windows properly from the warehouse, but how do I import the windows inside the wall group?

I think you have to import them into the model and then cut-and-paste them into the group’s context. At least, when I download from the 3DW it only offers choice of loading into the current model (global context) or into a separate file, but not into the model’s currently active context (e.g. if you have opened a group for edit). Note: when getting models from the 3DW it is generally a good idea to load them into a separate model first and check the model’s statistics before putting them in your real model. There are lots of models in the 3DW that are way too detailed to be useful unless all you want is that specific item. They can clog up your model and cause SketchUp to become sluggish!